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Managerial Role of the Instructor
Decisions need to be made concerning the facilitator and student relationship. This needs to be an association. The facilitator controls or manages the environment and the process (this provides structure) while providing leadership. The student uses the resource, the environment, and other learners, to construct knowledge. This is much the same as in the classroom. However, online discussion does result in some unique situations. Making clear the role that the facilitator will be playing makes it clear to the students what their role will be. A facilitator is responsible for encouraging those who are not participating, “toning down” a student who is responding irresponsibly, and noting and supporting students who have made useful and insightful comments. These types of comments can generally be handled privately. If one chooses to use online discussion, cooperative learning experiences for students may be enhanced by encouraging students to help other students *** Student motivation in asynchronous discussion presents a unique problem for the instructor. Since many of the cues and tacit signs that give students approval in face-to-face communication are missing from the online discussion, instructors must develop the ability to encourage students for their contributions. Prior to engaging students, the facilitator needs to consider the following: Workload of the student. What will be the expectation from students both in and out of class? How much time is expected of the student to participate in an online asynchronous discussion? *A suggestion is to make a chart of the entire semester as to what is expected of the students (Penn State). With this knowledge, an instructor can better design the discussion process and the role it will play in relation to the class work. *Will the discussion board be considered part of the reading assignment of the students additionally to reading already assigned, or will this replace something that is assigned? Workload and commitment of the instructor. Maintaining a continuous online discussion increases reading time of the instructor, unless this is replacing something else in the classroom. Designing good questions for online discussion is not always the same as discussion questions in class. The instructor should plan to comment upon each post of each student. If this is so, the instructor will need to allow the time to do this. What is the purpose for the discussion? Options might be: *Help to those experiencing difficulty *Personal introductions *Chapter summaries *Exchanging information on different subjects *Exploring ideas by commenting on open-ended discussion questions *Polls of relevant opinions in the field *Short research projects *Field work reporting *Checking and asking factual questions. The purpose of the discussion needs to be clear in the instructor’s mind and in the student’s. A first opportunity for a discussion forum might be an interchange of ideas as to what the forum’s purpose will be. Students need to realize that while they may have experience at sitting in class listening, a discussion forum is based upon participation. Other expectations that need to be clear for the students: *Are students expected to proofread their answers before submitting their responses? *Are standard punctuation and sentence structure required? *How often are students expected to respond? *Are the discussions graded? *What percentage of a grade will be devoted to online discussion grade? *What constitutes a posting? *What is the appropriate length of a posting? Moderating Generally, the technical conditions are defined in the software to be used in the online discussion. The facilitator chooses whether to set the forum up as several groups within a class or as an entire class participating in one discussion. Considerations should be the amount of students, how often the instructor wants the students to respond. The more participants in a single online discussion, the more difficult and unwieldy the discussion could become. Suggestions: *A student who starts a thread is responsible for doing some type of wrapping up or summary of the discussion. *Use subject lines as advance organizers to bridge new learning or material with previous terms and concepts. *Posting course documents for online discussion *Be realistic about discussion questions. If the subject does not support much discussion in the classroom, is also limited. *Creating “in-class” community will foster online community. *Give a certain amount of weight to the discussion. If there is little weight, then students may not respond. *Discuss with the students whether they want the instructor to participate in the discussion. *Give credit to good discussion. A reward may encourage students who are not participating within the classroom because there is a “no stakes” attitude to classroom discussion may spark more discussion. *Restricting viewing of the online discussion to the students of the class and the instructor may help students feel more at ease in participating. *Create assignments that encourage collaboration among students online. *Base some part of class quizzes on the online discussion threads *Design the first questions so as not to expect too much of the participants. This allows any who are having difficulty adapting to the format to catch up *Requiring students to participate a specific number of times It might be helpful once a question is posted to have all of the participants respond initially in some sort of communicative act. This allows the instructor to be sure that all participants are at least receiving the communication. It can serve also as a means of “class being in session”. Sometimes this also helps to create the virtual classroom. **Designing online questions** Seventy to eighty percent of the questions asked require factual recall (USDOE 1986). This is the greatest majority of a teacher’s questions in the regular classroom. However, research also states that little of that knowledge is actually retained. Higher level questions eliciting higher cognitive processes result in students retaining much more of the information gained by this type of questioning. Lin Mullenburg and Zane Borge gathered information concerning types of questions used by online instructors. They grouped their questions in some of the following categories based upon G.D. Borich (1996) Effective Teaching Methods. Questions that will address relations between facts, such as comparisons, purposes, explanations, causes, consequences, predictions, or sequences and those requiring justifications of opinions are the goal of the online instructor. These types of questions will promote thinking and discussion. However, it is difficult to design such questions. Some of the following examples may help. *Interest getting and attention getting. “If you awakened in the year 2399, what is the first thing you would notice?” *Encouraging higher level thought processes. “Considering what you have read, and what was discussed in the posts this past week, can you summarize all the ways there are to overcome blocks to effective teamwork?” *Focus on a main topic or issue. “If this is the main focus of [a particular argument] then we must ask the question, what is or should be the goal of [our efforts]. *Evaluative: Compare between two ideas, articles, theories. *Scenarios, critical incidents or problems: Describe a scenario and then ask, “If the decision were yours, how might you approach this? What data would you need to collect? *Case studies: What are the pertinent points to note? How would you approach it? What would be the response of the individual in the study? *Role-playing: Assign each member of a group a specific position to maintain. (Borich 1996 in Muilenburg, Lin & Zane L. Berge. 2002) As the discussion continues, raising additional topics on a regular basis in order to reopen discussion will become necessary. These generally will need to state a problem and provide background to understanding so they provoke responses. Students should be encouraged to comment on these, draw conclusions and provide feedback as to meanings of the information. Once the discussion is underway, facilitating the discussion becomes the main focus for the instructor. The choice is for private comments using a form such as email or using questions to promote effective and ongoing discussion. L.B. Savage (1998) as cited in Muilenburg & Zane (2002), suggested the following questions: What reasons do you have for saying that? Why do you agree (or disagree) on that point? How are you defining the term that you just used? What do you mean by that expression? Is what you are saying here consistent with what you said before? Could you clarify that remark? When you say that, what is implied by your remarks? What could follow from what you just said? What alternatives are there to such a formulation? |